


I Know

by Speary



Series: Season 11 Coda Fics [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fluff, Destiel - Freeform, Is this a coda?, Kissing, M/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 12:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5290634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speary/pseuds/Speary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean watches him sleep too, and sometimes he wants to tell him what he thinks in those moments of too rare peace between them.<br/>---<br/>Coda sort of with references to 11x5</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know

**Author's Note:**

> For my friends in the DMs. I am grateful for you all. Thanks for all the conversations and utter joy.

He doesn’t need to sleep, but he does sometimes, just to follow their patterns. It isn’t sleep really. It’s more of a powering down thing that he does. Dean watches him sometimes and wonders what it is like to be conscious and unconscious at the same time.

Cas is completely still and curled up in a blanket on the couch. Dean stares at his lips, then his gaze migrates up to his closed eyes and the little lines that stretch out from the edges. His hair is ruffled up and some of it is draped languidly across his forehead. Dean can only smile at the picture that is stretched out right there in front of him.

Dean settles into the arm chair across from him and cracks open a book that he pretends to read. Sam passes by on his way to the kitchen. Dean puts a finger to his lips with a silent shush formed on his lips. Sam follows Dean’s gaze down to Cas, and he smiles. They throw each other a nod, and Sam moves on. Quiet moments like this are rare things. Dean relishes them and wishes that he could figure out how to stretch the time into something that feels at least a little long. 

He moves the book up a little so that he can start reading it, or at least pretend more reasonably. A muscle in Cas’ cheek twitches as if he is dreaming. Dean wonders if he really does dream.  _What would an angel dream of anyway?_  A smile found its way to Cas’ lips. Dean is mesmerized. It seemed like another rare thing lately, Cas smiling. So much that was dire and melancholy seemed to take over their lives and smiling was something that was often more sardonic than real. Here was Cas though, asleep and smiling, and Dean felt like all the world was awash in sunlight. He was literally sitting in a windowless bunker and Cas was making him feel like he was basking under summer skies.

Now Dean was smiling. He glanced down at his book, but he didn’t read a single word. Sam came back out into the space and looked at Dean with a little smile. “Good book?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Dean whispered back. 

“Must be. Bet it would be easier to read it right side up though.” Sam raised an eyebrow at him as he made his pronouncement.

Dean looked down at the book that was indeed upside-down. He turned it over and concentrated on it until he was sure that Sam had wandered off. Soon enough he was able to go back to his prior activities. Cas shifted a bit on the couch, and Dean worried that he might topple over the edge. Dean made a move to catch him before he realized how futile that would be. 

He settled back into his armchair and calmed himself. Cas’ lip curled up into another smile, smaller this time than before. Dean found himself wondering yet again what Cas could be smiling about. Dean glanced down at his watch and saw that it was drawing close to midnight, and he really should stop fake reading already.

Cas’ lips parted though, and he said something. Dean found himself leaning forward to hear him better should he speak again. He hovered for a moment or two and in that time stars came to exist, while others were snuffed out, becoming just darkness. Dean held his breath and waited. He counted the seconds that became a millennium in those moments. 

The room was filled with the gentle hum of machines that he never would have noticed before except now they were the only things filling the silent room. The clock on the far table was ticking. The fans in the large computer were whirring. Even the lights were sending out a normally quiet buzz, but now they didn’t seem so quiet; they were deafening in their volume. Yet what noise did he get from Cas? None. He got silence.

He breathed in the warm air of the bunker and settled back into this chair. His eyes drifted up to the ceiling. He wondered not for the first time why he was being so fixated, then Cas spoke again. This time he heard him loud and clear. “Dean.” 

It was just his name, but that utterance did something to him. Cas said his name. Dean felt his heart kick up a steady drum beat of sorts. He imagined all the reasons Cas could have for saying his name while dreaming. He decided that it was a dream now, because that was the simplest way to explain what surely was going on with Cas. 

Dean watched the way that Cas’ eyes seemed to scrunch up a little more as he laid there, like he was singularly focused on something of great importance, or something far away. He noticed how his mouth formed a thin line, his lips sucked in a bit. Then he did it again, “Dean.” This time his voice was low, like he was frustrated by something that Dean had been doing.

 _What was he dreaming?_  Dean imagined many things in the moments that followed the second utterance. He imagined Cas leaning close to his ear to get his attention, his name on his lips. He imagined the way that the word would curl out of him like thin wisps of smoke from the still warm embers of a campfire. Dean thought about how fun it might be to take Cas camping. Being outside under the stars might make him happy.

He wanted to make Cas happy. He wanted all of the people that he counted as family to be happy. He took a moment though to really think about it and let himself live with the thought that he really really wanted Cas to be happy.  _He deserved happiness more than most_ , Dean thought. Dean wondered if it was within his capacity to make Cas truly happy. He further wondered how he might go about accomplishing that. 

“Please, let me heal you.” Dean’s brows came together. Cas was dreaming of the moment that he had told him that they were even.  _Why would he dream of that moment?_ Dean was feeling the weight of that moment again and all the subsequent moments after. Not letting Cas heal him had been his penance. It had been the one way that he had to feel like he was paying for his crimes not just against Cas but against everyone else too.

Now here was Cas sounding like all the world was pain, and Dean’s name on his lips was another piece of evidence to add to the laundry list of ways that Dean had hurt him. Dean came down to his knees in front of his sleeping face. Cas opened his eyes. “You were talking. I was going to wake you up.” Dean stayed where he was, unsure whether or not he should move.

“What did I say?” Cas didn’t sit up. He just kept laying there, staring up at Dean. 

Dean considered whether or not to err on the side of truth. “You said my name. You wanted to heal me.” He felt his body settle back onto his heels. He had been balancing on his toes a bit. 

“Oh.” That was all. Cas just let the word go like it was a breath of air that needed freedom. He didn’t elaborate or look away to contemplate the situation.

Dean waited for more. A stray bit of hair curled up near Cas’ eye and Dean wanted to brush it aside. He was fixated on it even. He reached out and tried to push it back. Cas’ hair was determined though, and it slid back to where it had been, right at the edge of his eye. He followed Dean’s movements though. He followed Dean’s hand as it tried to smooth back the hair, failed, and tried again. Dean eventually decided that the best solution was to just cup his head in his hand and hold the hair back just like that.

“What are you doing?” Cas finally asked after seeming to determine that Dean had no intention of taking his hand back.

“Um.” He wondered how to answer. He was literally holding Cas’ face in his hand. He had every intention of holding him like this for the foreseeable future or at least until he could find words that could explain everything that he was feeling in that unending moment. Yet here was Cas questioning it. Dean didn’t want to be questioned. He wanted to just be allowed this. “Your hair was getting in your eyes.” The excuse was feeble, but it bought him a few more moments of this contact, this tender peace.

Dean let him go though. His hand retreated back to his own space. The hair fell back toward Cas’ eye again, and Dean watched as Cas darted a glance at it then back at Dean. “It seems to be determined to fall there.” 

Before Dean could make a mistake, he got up and smoothed back his own hair. “Goodnight, Cas.” He moved away from him and got all the way to his room where he managed to close the door and toss himself on his bed in a kind of defeat.

 _Why?_  He didn’t even know what he was questioning particularly.  _Everything._  He felt a dull ache forming in him, a slow twisting of muscles that were too tired to handle such a thing. Since Cas had returned to the bunker, Dean had sought ways to keep within close proximity of him.  The brush of a hand across his arm, a little pat on the back, or a lean in his seat that would inevitably bring their bodies together, each of these actions had become normal parts of his daily routine. They were pleasure and peace. Now, he felt like a fool, a creep even.

There was a quiet tap at his door, then it opened. Cas moved into the room and sat next to Dean’s supine form. He filled in the space near Dean’s side and turned a little to face him. He looked down into Dean’s face and settled a hand on Dean’s cheek. They stayed like that for a moment, or forever, staring at each other in the dim room.

Years ago he had let Cas see into his thoughts, and since then, he was sure that Cas could always see his inner workings or at least feel them in a way, because sometimes he said or did something that was just a little too close to home for it to have been random. Now was one of those times, and Dean was grateful for it. Words were hard. Actions were no better.

He felt like he should say something, anything. He thought about the way things seemed to feel better now. He thought that somehow he was finally getting something that felt like peace and all the good things. Here he was living a life that was rather a mess and yet, he was bordering on being happy in this moment. Sam had asked him what he wanted for himself in the future, and he knew despite being unable to answer him. He didn’t feel he had he right to any of the things that he wanted, least of all this. So many people loved him, and all of them had died at some point for that love. He’d give that love back a hundred fold if he could, but it always seemed to lead them to harm.

He didn’t want Cas to hurt. He didn’t want him to suffer anymore because of him, but he also wanted him to know that in this world he mattered. He mattered a great deal. There were words that were not a part of Dean’s lexicon. In this moment though and maybe before too, they found their way into his head space. They nestled in and made a home of his mind. The words took on a life there, a world of imagined comfort formed from those words. They became sweet and warm. He thought through the words now, and wondered how best to convey them.

“I know.” Cas let his thumb stroke out comfort to Dean’s temple, and Dean didn’t have to feel like a fool, because Cas was choosing this. Dean leaned into the touch just a fraction more and thought about just what Cas knew. Cas leaned down to him and kissed his forehead. His lips brushed back the lines of worry that had formed there. 

They were close now as Cas came up from the moment. His thumb still rubbing comfort into his temple, a quiet rustling sound forming with each stroke reminded Dean that he needed to shave. Cas stared down at him for a moment more before he committed to another action. He leaned down again and let his lips brush over Deans.

It was soft almost like they were just breathing each other. It was barely there then it was gone as Cas moved marginally back, just inches separating them as he seemed to contemplate whether or not he had made a mistake. Dean reached up and settled his hand on Cas’ face. His hair was falling again near his eye. Dean brushed it back and held it there.

A smile curled up at the corner of Cas’ lips. He moved to Dean again and brushed another kiss over his lips. There was warmth in the moment this time, not like embers that were slowly dying, not like kindling preparing to spark. No, this moment was more like the warmth of a fire that had been burning for sometime, and was in no danger of going out. 

Dean pulled him closer, wanting to taste the heat of him. He felt Cas’ other hand slide around the back of his neck hauling him up from the bed more fully into his arms. It was a temporary lifting though. The bed shifted beneath him as Cas moved to cover him more and lean him back into it.

“Cas,” he breathed out his name when he finally could. He looked past the shadows that covered Cas’ face and saw what Cas knew of his affection. He saw it reflected back at him. Dean smiled with the thought. “You know?” 

“I know.” Cas leaned down again, but this time he just rested his forehead on Dean’s as he spoke. “I’ve always known, and I hope you know that your thoughts and mine, they are the same.” 

And the fire that warmed him burned bright in his chest. Dean kissed him then, in a way that he hoped would convey his happiness, in a way that he hoped would make Cas happy too, for some time to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this. If you get bored, you can find me on Tumblr as [Spearywritesstuff](http://spearywritesstuff.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Drop me a comment or a kudos if you liked this. Thanks a bunch.


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